Berlin’s police chief Barbara Slowik has defended the physical coercion of police officers against climate activists in road blockades. Regarding allegations of police violence, Slowik told the “Berliner Morgenpost”: “If a person does not comply with our requests to leave the street, we use measures of direct coercion against them. There is a legal basis for this, on which the police, the has the monopoly on the use of force in this state, may use force.”
The background is video recordings in which a police officer announces to a man sitting on the street that he will suffer pain if he does not clear the lane. The policeman then grabs the demonstrator and carries him away. The man yells.
The Berlin police chief did not want to evaluate the individual case. But it is “due to the rule of law to make it clear that the announced measures of direct coercion can lead to pain”. The police do not use so-called pain grips that are explicitly intended to trigger pain. “But there are handles that can lead to pain if someone makes themselves difficult or falls or does not follow the given movement and direction impulse,” said the police chief. “Colleagues should explain that.”
The supreme principle is that direct coercion is used in a proportionate manner. “What exactly is proportionate is either ordered by the police commander during the operation or the colleagues decide on a case-by-case basis.” Many people are not aware of what the police are allowed to do. As a result, “legitimate measures of direct coercion, which admittedly do not look nice, are interpreted as police violence in an illegitimate sense.”
